


able and willing

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:21:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8119747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: "I am not a god," he denied. His left hand grasped the fabric over his heart. The place where his sleeping heart had once been, and now beat without blood. A song without a beat. "Not yet," The Tesseract agreed. "But you will be. Do not deny that truth, Man of Iron, Child of Iron."   Tony Stark grows up near the Tesseract. It changes him, except in the ways that it doesn't,  and the world, except how it stays the same.





	

 

 

 _“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent._  
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.  
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?  
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

  
― Epicurus

 

 

 

The Tesseract was an artifact. The Tesseract was sentient. The Tesseract did not concern itself with humans.

Only one of these is a lie.

 

  
Howard Stark, incorrigible and impatient, threw a fit when the shipment was delayed. If he were to ask the company why they would be unable to explain why it was that the bus could not take the boxes to the D.C. units. As he did not ask, all he knew was what the cowered, glazed-eyed employee could tell him. He went off in a huff, striding without pausing for him son's soft calls.

Young Anthony, slighted, bottom lip quivering, huffed like his father and tried to bring forth the same righteous rage. All that he could come up with was hurt. He tried not to cry, because Stark men did not cry, they were all iron and stone. 

To distract himself, he followed the butler Jarvis as he directed the poor dazed employee out of the door. Then Jarvis called for help from the gardener and together they brought the crate back to the basement, where it was to say in definitely.

Anthony sneaked inside. He was not worried about being locked in; he'd long learned how to pick locks, played at it even, though the electronic ones were the most fun. Curious as only a child or a genius or both could be, he blinked at the CAREFUL FRAGILE DANGEROUS red tape, prodded at the wood, squatted down in the ground.

Whatever was inside whirred softly, a thrumming in the place where his brain met his ear, which was silly because he knew that was not how brains worked.

Blue light seeped through the cracks of the crate. In the darkness of the basement, it was especially blue and especially bright. The noise seemed more like a hum now, like his mother's Italian ditties. He hummed back, setting a tune. Gasped delightedly when the thing in the box hummed back the same song, lower and louder, somehow.

 

  
After that, it wasn't long until he started talking.

"Oh, and yesterday I built a motor for a race car! Dad has a whole garage of them, they're gorgeous. Especially the red Porsche. Do you think he'll let me built one of them? Maybe he'd help me!"

"Mom is going away again. She says she's going to Hawai'i this time. I asked to go with her, but she said it was only for a little while and that I wouldn't like it. I know it was because Dad didn't let her take me, though. I heard them talking about it."

"Why doesn't Dad spent time with me? Tom's Dad comes to all of his baseball games, and that he says they go to the cinema after. I tried to get in the team, but the coach said I was too weak and scrawny."

 

  
And it took no time at all for it to talk back.

"You are not weak, child. You are young and untried, but full of potential. Grow, and you shall be great."

"How do you know that?"

"I know much. Do not deny this truth."

 

 

Buried under work and equations in his workshop, Howard Stark could not understand how the formula for the arc reactor energy kept slipping through his brain, numbers like sand snatched away by deep waters.

 

 

"Do you think this machine could ever work? I showed it to Obie, and he said it would, but I think he wants me to work on weapons. He always likes those better."

"What do you like better, child?"

"I don't know. I'm a Stark. I have to build things, I want to, but I don't think I want to build the same things as my Dad. It would be kinda boring, wouldn't it?"

"I do not think you know how to be boring."

"Hey! I resemble that remark!"

 

 

Tony cried when the crate was sent away. He could not remember why, after, could not remember the last time he cried, except that he felt lonelier ever since. It was by then that he was sent away for the first boarding school. He was only to return to his parent's mansion for the holidays, and even then not very often. It was a lonely place, too solemn. It did not feel like somewhere you could hum.

He kept on building. At one point creating became destroying, but he could not tell when, either. 

 

  
The media was the altar and he the offering, the sinner and martyr and God. Tony Stark was everyone's rakish darling, loved and hated and lovely to hate. The world at his fingertips; the world beneath; the world around, pressing close, allowing no exits.

They called him the Merchant of Death. They called him The Great Tony Stark, and the epithet was not a lie, but it did not feel like a truth either.

Afghanistan was heat and blood and in the dark of that cave, working beside the best man he'd ever met, Tony created himself a heart.

 

(That is a lie. He already had one, a clockwork machine of a muscle, an iron veil covering it from the world. It shone bright and occasionally it shone blue, but it was always there.)

 

Palladium was corrosive to the flesh. A poison, slow and careful, unhurried and uncaring. It stained flesh and ate away at cells, dulled senses and did not care for the waste if left behind.

"I am not a god," he denied. His face was ashen; his eyes were wide, black starting to tint the delicate veins of his lids. His left hand, grease-stained and long-fingered, grasped the fabric over his heart. The place where his sleeping heart had once been, and now beat without blood. A song without a beat. 

"Not yet," The Tesseract agreed. He could not tell when it had appeared. He could not tell if it had not always been there, always watching. "But you will be. Do not deny that truth, Man of Iron, Child of Iron."

Tony did not deny. He was too busy struggling for breath, struggling to the last. He was not in pain. He was too full not to be aching.

Let it be said of him: he fought for humanity at the end. His own, until he lost it, and then everyone else's.

 

 

Anthony Stark dies. All the world watches as his coffin is laid down to rest. A red-haired woman cries under a veil, without anyone to see her grief. A soldier fires at the sky and thinks of the way his brother-friend used to smile at him.

Hymns are sang. It is only fitting, after all.

The prayers start that very day. First the big ones, the ones that did not cease ( _save my children stop the fire please please no help-_ ), the smallest ones only after ( _please don't let the car break down no come on don't crash the plane isn't landing oh god iron man-_ )

Iron Man answers. Always, he answers.

 

 

  
By the time the World Security Council decided to sacrifice a city for the world, Iron Man was everyone's savior. He was the name whispered, the last word of evil man, the sigh of the innocent.

  
New York, abandoned and fearful, thrums with faith and desperation, children crying in dark places. It was a terrible silence, but not soundless. There was a hum in the air, low and loud, the same song growing from itself. 

The sky opened to the suit and opened wider for the being inside, stretched infinitely wider. The universe: the greatest maw to ever exist, teeth of stars, supernovas hungering. There was darkness.

And then there was light.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how to tag this tbh. There will be more eventually.
> 
> kudos and comments are always welcome.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the last word of the evil man, the sigh of the innocent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15001928) by [pawn_vs_player](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player)




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